


The Last Wolves

by Rajatarangini



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-07-15 02:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7202147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rajatarangini/pseuds/Rajatarangini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is hoping and trying and reaching for him; but the shadow of their lost sister lies between them</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at a Jon/Sansa fiction :)

She walks through the godswood, following the familiar path to the heart tree. The snows of the winter have begun melting now, and the ground beneath her feet is a little muddy, her shoes making squishy sounds as she walks, one foot after the other, all the while hoping the knot in her belly will loosen; but instead, the nervousness and hesitance make her insides seem to swirl and tighten, making her feel almost queasy.

He must be there, she knows. He always is. When he is done with inspecting the reparations of the castle, sparring with the menfolk, returning from his usual ride around Wintertown and finishing the rest of his lordly duties, he always comes to the godswood, Ghost at his feet, Nymeria alongside her brother.

She glances upwards at the dark canopy that the twisted branches of the oaks and sentinels and ironwoods weave overhead, melting snow dripping down the tips of the glistening sloping leaves and bare branches, the soggy ground a little uneven due to the misshapen roots that she knows duel for space beneath.

She closes her eyes, praying to the nameless old gods for the strength to do what she seeks to, for making him give in to her.

When she opens her eyes again, for a moment, she can see Father, beneath the heart tree, sitting on that big stone, the swatch of oiled leather in his hand moving with a delicacy that was hardly something one would expect in the cold, stern-faced Lord of Winterfell.

When she glances at the dark, deep pool, she can see the weirwood’s bone-white trunk and its blood-red leaves reflected in the still waters; and when she shuts her eyes yet again, she can imagine Father’s own reflection mirrored there, the Valyrian steel of  _Ice_  gleaming bright on the dark, unmoving liquid.

But when her eyelids flutter open, it isn’t Father who is sitting beneath the weirdwood, but Jon. He isn’t sitting on the stone Father used to sit on, but at the foot of the stone. There is no Ice in his hands, but there’s Longclaw lying by his side, and Ghost too, as white as the trunk of the weirwood. His eyes – as red as the fluttering leaves of the heart tree – stare at her, as do Nymeria’s eyes, as wild and stubborn as Arya’s were. The thought of her lost sister sends a pang through her heart.

“Sansa,” Jon says gruffly, looking up at her; and she realises yet again how different he sounds from the half-brother of her childhood. His voice is far deeper now, gruffer, with a sort of sorrow and emptiness always lingering in his tone. His eyes meet hers, dark and unblinking, searching and not finding, looking at her, but  _not_ looking at her too – if that even makes sense. When she looks to the giant red-eyed beast by Jon’s side, she finds Ghost staring at her just like Jon is, but the direwolf’s gaze somehow seems more human than Jon’s, a little curious, with a sense of familiarity and even tenderness in the blood-red irises – something she has never seen in Jon’s gaze yet, much to her sorrow.

 _He is the wolf, my lady,_ she remembers Lord Howland Reed telling her that dark evening, when the frozen waters of the Trident had been tinged red, quivering and decayed limbs littered around, with dying warriors and moaning men, with wildling spearwives and their babes clutched to their breasts, and some of her smallfolk of the Riverlands torn apart by the Wights, some corpses of the Vale army caught in the dragons’ fierce flames, burnt and bleeding, while Jon had stood in the middle of the carnage, facing the unearthly Great Other, Longclaw bright in his hands, Ghost and Nymeria flanking him, the Dragon Queen flying above on her black dragon which was billowing red, deathly fire.

 _He is the wolf, my lady,_ she remembers Howland’s words again,  _and the wolf is him._

And she clings to the hope that, perhaps, the familiarity she sees in Ghost’s gaze is  _Jon’s,_ not the direwolf’s.

“Sansa,” Jon repeats, as she lays her cloak on the floor of the godswood and sits beside him.

She runs a hesitant hand through Nymeria’s fur, the direwolf not responding to the gesture at all, unlike Ghost would have. In the days when Sansa had met Nymeria and her huge pack in the Riverlands, the wolf pack killing as many Freys as some of the renowned Vale warriors had, Nymeria never left Sansa’s side, always protecting her, barring her teeth at anyone who sought to harm her. But now, it is  _Jon_  whose side Nymeria never leaves… almost like Arya was when they were children, when she used to follow their bastard half-brother around on tottering feet even as a babe, her smile fierce and her eyes wide and bright as Jon gathered her into his arms, tickling her until they both fell to the floor in a fit of giggles.

Watching the two of them, the grey-eyed man and the grey-furred wolf, Sansa feels almost jealous, and, sadly,  _alone_. Sansa was never overtly warm towards Jon in their childhood; but even if she was, Sansa knows Arya would still be the sister Jon would have preferred, the sister he perhaps loved more than all the rest of his siblings, even Robb…the only one for whom he set out to break the oath he had sworn to the Night’s Watch, the  _only_  person Jon remembers loving.

 _Is she in Nymeria, Jon, like you are in Ghost?_ Sansa wants to ask him.  _Is she lost to us, or is she still alive in Nymeria? Is that why Nymeria never leaves Ghost, like Ghost never leaves her? Is that why you seem to care more for the direwolf than you do for me, your own sister—cousin,_ she amends in her thoughts, the questions she knows she will never ask him, because she fears he won’t reply, because she fears he will turn further away from her if she demands answers.

“Jon,” she says instead, the knots in her belly tightening again. “We are the last two Starks, Jon,” she tells him quietly, as a low growl rumbles in Nymeria’s throat. But Sansa pays the wolf no attention. “The Lords of the Riverlands swear fealty to me. But the North—”

“The North is yours, Sansa,” he interrupts her, a flicker of something in his grey eyes that belies the stern face he is putting on, his  _lord’s face,_ as Mother would have called it, _Father’s_  face... “Winterfell belongs to  _you,_ my lady. I am no Stark, I never was.”

His expression is firm, unchanged, as is the tone of his voice. But Sansa thinks she can sense it all – his bitterness at the truth of his birth, at the loss of his very identity, his rage at how Father kept the secret hidden from him… and his sorrow that the man, whose son he had always wanted to be remembered as, isn’t his father at all.

She clasps his hand, noticing that he hasn’t worn his gloves. He doesn’t need to; his blood runs hot, they say, since the moment he arose from the dead, from the flaming pyre his corpse was supposed to burn in. It is the first time she is touching him since the day at the Trident when she saw him and flew into his arms, clutching at him as if her very life depended on him, the first of her family she had seen in years, afraid that if she let go, he would be lost to her like Father and Mother and Robb, taking with him all the hopes and memories of their family and home. She had clung to him, but he hadn’t even hugged her back, merely stared at her in bewilderment when she let go, as if he didn’t know her at all, as if he had  _never_ known her.

 _I am your sister, Jon. I am Sansa,_ she had cried, voice trembling, wondering  _why_ he was saying nothing, why he was watching her as if she was one of the unknown, perplexing creatures from beyond the fallen Wall. It was only when Lord Reed spoke to her of Jon’s death and resurrection that she had finally known of his loss of everything that had  _made_  him Jon Snow.

She pushes the thoughts of that day away, and stares at their entwined fingers instead. His hand  _is_ unusually warm; she can feel the heat of his skin even through her own gloves. She watches the scars on his hand – the burn scars. She had asked him once, she remembers, of where he had got them from, regretting it the moment she did, because he had no answer to it; he remembered nothing of it, just like he remembered nothing of most things since he was brought back to life, the gods taking his memories in lieu of the life they granted him, leaving behind only a deep yearning, _an obsession,_ as Maester Tarly once called it – for Winterfell, and for  _Arya,_ the latter far more than the former.

“You are a Stark,” she tells him softly, “as much as I am. You may be born of Rhaegar Targeryan’s seed, but you are Eddard Stark’s son – everyone can see that, Jon. That is why the lords named you King in the North, that is why the mountain clans and even the wildlings followed you to take back Winterfell and lead the battle against the Others—”

“I am no King,” he says, almost fiercely, “and I am no Stark. If Robb—” his brow furrows for a moment, almost if he is trying to remember something of the brother they both lost (for she knows Robb shall always remain Jon’s brother, no matter that they never shared a father at all). “If Robb knew I wasn’t Father’s…” he falls abruptly silent.

 _Father._ It almost makes her smile at how easily the word comes to Jon. For all his bitterness at how Father kept him in the dark about his parentage, for all that he remembers nothing about Father, Sansa knows Eddard Stark is the only father Jon ever had, and the only father he will ever want.

Jon sighs, silent and brooding again.

Nymeria, seeming to sense his distress, nudges at his hand, golden eyes unusually soft, slipping her nose beneath his pale palm and fingers until all of her huge head lies underneath Jon’s hand, his fingers almost absently threading through Nymeria’s fur, seeming more affectionate with their sister’s direwolf than he even is with his own.

“What do you want, Sansa?” Jon breaks the silence after a long moment, looking at her again.

She stares at him, all the unspoken words of the past many moons simmering in her breast, wanting to be heard, wanting to let them all out, wanting the last family left to her to  _understand_.

“I want to remain in the North,” she whispers, glancing at the sad eyes of the heart tree –  _Bran’s eyes,_ she thinks sometimes. “I never want to go south of the Neck again. I never want to leave Winterfell again.”

“You don’t have to,” he says, almost softly – and there’s a little of the understanding she wanted, the sense of shared yearning, of shared loss, of the shared home they both fear to leave again.

“The Riverlords have sworn their fealty to me,” she says quietly. “The Riverlands shall not bow to the Dragon Queen. But the North…” she trails off, thinking of how the North shall never foreswear Jon, the King they chose, the man who ended the Long Night, the man who helped rid them of the fearsome Others, the man some claim is Azor Ahai reborn.

“Sansa?” he urges her, a sliver of curiosity and wariness in his gaze now.

“Wed me, Jon,” the words tumble out of her before she can stop them. She has spent so many sleepless nights planning on what she would say, of the words that would convince him of the merit of her idea. But now, faced with those eyes which remind her of Father and Arya, she finds herself forgetting all the things she had so painstakingly decided on.

Nymeria growls, standing up so suddenly that Jon’s hand drops to the ground with a thud. The direwolf stares at Sansa fiercely, her lips pulled back, her teeth showing. But Jon puts his arm around her furry neck, and Nymeria reluctantly calms at his touch.

“Sansa,” Jon whispers, an almost pained whisper, turning his gaze from her to the direwolf. He withdraws his hand from hers; and Sansa fears he is going to refuse.

“Marry me,” she repeats, her desperation fuelling a ferocity that seems foreign to her, something that would have suited Arya more than her. “I have the Riverlands, you have the North—”

“The North is  _yours,_ ” he cuts in stubbornly. “You are the last of Eddard Stark’s blood.” A growl rumbles in Nymeria’s throat again. “The North is yours,” persists Jon, “It always was.”

 _Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa,_ he is said to have told Stannis Baratheon when he offered Winterfell to Jon. It almost makes Sansa smile despite the trepidation she is feeling. She wonders if Jon remembers saying those words to the late Baratheon brother. But she knows better than to ask him.

“My blood does give me a right to claim Winterfell, but you are the man the North chose to lead them. And I shall not take that away from them,” she tells him quietly. She knows how difficult it is to invoke respect and loyalty in her bannermen, to make them firm and faithful enough to give their lives fighting for her. She has walked that tough path when she claimed the Riverlands by virtue of her Tully blood, as the last surviving grandchild of Lord Hoster Tully. She knows that Jon perhaps walked the same path when he arose from the dead, leading the wildlings and the Mountain clans in the victorious battle against the Boltons, claiming the North as Eddard Stark’s son, as the legitimised brother named heir by King Robb, until Howland Reed revealed the secret of his birth…

“Marry me,” she repeats, heart hammering madly in her chest, “Marry me, and we shall hold our lands together – like Robb did, the Kingdom of the North and the Trident. The War is over, and it is for us to rebuild our kingdom again, bring peace and justice... like Robb would have done if they hadn't killed him...”

 _Like Father would have wanted,_ she wants to say, but she doesn't truly know whether Father would give their wedding his blessing, for Father had brought up Jon and her as siblings; and she knows the mention of Father will only serve to make Jon more distant and reluctant.

Jon says nothing, staring at her blankly.

She thinks he  _will_ refuse. After all, hadn’t he refused to wed the fearsome Daenerys? The Dragon Queen had raged and ranted and demanded that her nephew wed her, that they rule the Seven Kingdoms together. But Jon had stood firm, declining her, unafraid of her rage and of her last remaining dragon, and claiming she had no right to the two kingdoms that belonged to Sansa.

 _When the Dragon Queen couldn’t make him budge, how will I?_ Sansa thinks, with a sense of defeat.

“You are my sister,” Jon says finally.

“I am your  _cousin_ ,” she says, hating the words, knowing how they refute her claim of them both being Starks when she acknowledges that they don’t share a father. But no matter Jon’s dragon blood, he  _is_ the last brother left to her. She knows her words will only serve to grieve him as much as they grieve her, if he even finds her worth grieving for. “Grandfather Rickard married Grandmother Lyarra, and they were first cousins, like us.”

Jon shakes his head, solemn and stubborn. “You deserve better, Sansa. Marry a good man, someone kind and strong and gentle.”

The way he says it, with his eyes so full of a sudden concern, with his long face and the dark hair… and those eyes again… grey eyes, Father’s eyes… there's a little lump in her throat now.

 _What would you say, Father?_ she wonders.  _Would you want Jon and me to marry? Or would that make us as bad as Jamie and Cersei? After all, you brought us up as brother and sister. But Jon_ is  _everything that you wanted me to have – strong and brave, and even gentle and kind sometimes… and above all, someone who wouldn’t look at me and see only my lands and titles and kingdom and claim._

“I want to remain in Winterfell. It is our home,” she says, taking his scarred hand again. “I want us to rule our kingdom together. I want  _you,_ Jon.”

Jon says nothing. He stares at their entwined fingers for a long moment, her heart thumping madly the longer he maintains his silence.

The heart tree’s leaves flutter, and Jon suddenly looks up at the sad face carved in the tree, his eyes a little wide, as if he is listening to something Sansa can’t hear. His gaze moves back to their clasped hands, pensive, his bearded jaw tightening, a steeliness in his gaze now.

Nymeria growls a loud, almost threatening sound.

But Ghost gets up, silent like always. He walks to Sansa, something almost human in his eyes again as he nudges her with his snout, settling down at her feet now.

Jon nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and reviews - very encouraging for something I was so apprehensive about publishing :)

They spend more time together than they did in the many moons since she first met him at the Trident. She accompanies him on his frequent rides to Wintertown, where men and women alike take a knee to them, cheering for the man who rid them of the Boltons, for the daughter of the still-loved Lord Eddard Stark.

“We are to be their King and Queen, Jon,” she whispers to him as the smallfolk cheer them on their way to Torrhen’s Square, “They have to see us, they have to know we shall rule them justly, they have to know that there are Starks in Winterfell again.”

_I shall be a good Queen to them,_ she thinks when they ride to survey the Cerwyn and Tallhart lands and have men and women and even little toddlers come out to see the couple who are to be their King and Queen, cries of _Jon_ and _Sansa_ and _Stark!_ all around them.

_And Jon shall be as good a King as Robb would have been,_ she decides, when she sees how loudly they cheer for Jon, _an able King for the North as well as the Riverlands._

(But every time they leave Winterfell, she doesn’t fail to notice how uneasy he seems, how his eyes are clouded, how sullen Ghost looks when they leave the castle behind them, and how only Nymeria can cause Jon to forget his unnatural yearning for Winterfell long enough for him to smile when the she-wolf playfully nips at his fingers and races with his horse).

* * *

 

They take their meals together, with Maester Tarly dining with them, Jon just picking at his food, while the plump Maester devours the meat and pies. Jon nods politely when she mentions in passing that lemon cakes are her favourite.

(But he smiles only when she tells him that they were Arya’s favourite too).

* * *

 

They spend quite some time talking – even though the talk only revolves around their dreams for their realm. For all that Jon had declined sharing her right to rule at first, she finds that he is as intent on bringing peace and prosperity to their people as she is.

In the beginning, he only listens when she tells him of her plans for who should be in their Council, on who should be appointed to the Kingsguard (“ _the Queensguard, my lady”,_ he interrupts her), of her plans for where to settle the new lordships that would need to be awarded to their most faithful knights, on which of the many castles of the now-defunct Nights Watch to reward them with, on trading with the Free Cities to bring in the much-needed coin for the empty treasury...

Jon barely speaks, only agreeing with most of her views, putting in a rare word or two, his hand absently caressing Nymeria’s fur, while Ghost watches Sansa curiously.

But days later, uneasy with his silence, when she _insists_ that she wants to hear what he thinks, that she wants the counsel of the King who will rule alongside her, he begins to _really_ speak to her: about where he thinks the boundaries of their realm should lie in the far North, leaving the rest of the lands beyond the fallen Wall for the freefolk who do not want to be part of the new kingdom; he insists that she should have women warriors too in her Queensguard (“ _women can be as strong in the battlefield as in childbed, my lady, I have seen that in the spearwives who fought and died for me”);_ he speaks of wanting to import glass so that they can set up glasshouses to grow enough food (“ _for_ _winter is coming, my lady”)…_

But he speaks most of securing their borders in case his queenly aunt ever decides that she wanted to rule seven kingdoms and not five. He speaks of the need to train men ( _“and even women, those who want to wield a sword…” – like Arya_ , his dark gaze seems to say as he glances at Nymeria _),_ of strengthening whatever army they have left, of buying metal and forging arms for the nearly-empty armoury, of adding to the naval force they already have…

For the first time, she sees a sense of liveliness in him, an eagerness – a welcome change from the pensive, melancholy look he always carries. His eyes are alight, his manner almost animated as he vows that he shall never let their people suffer through war and carnage again, that he shall never let Winterfell fall again. Nymeria’s ears perk up as he speaks, her eyes on him all the time; Ghost’s white tail even wags a little, and Jon’s voice is laced with emotion and feeling –  something Sansa has never heard before.

_He is the right man to rule with me,_ she thinks happily every time they speak of their realm. He doesn’t thrust his views on her; he always listens keenly to her, never trivialising her opinions just because she is a woman ( _like some of my lords still do),_ never being patronising towards her, valuing what she has to say.

(But she doesn’t fail to notice that for all the time she spends watching him, observing him, gaining hope from how much he seems to care for the North, his eyes only seek Nymeria, his feet always follow the she-wolf out of the room the moment he finishes his talk with his betrothed, never staying back to speak with Sansa of something other than their kingdom, never asking her about their family, never seeking to know more of the woman who is to be his wife and queen).

* * *

 

She finds herself standing in front of the full-length mirror in her mother’s old chambers, her maids braiding her hair and dressing her in her wedding gown.

It is almost sad how she remembers so much of her past when her husband-to-be remembers nothing of his own, she muses. She remembers the gown she had worn at her first wedding, of ivory samite and cloth of silver, lined with shimmering satin, the sleeves that almost touched the ground when she lowered her arms, the deep bodice with the dove-grey lace. She remembers how beautiful she had looked as she had spun, giggling, the full and long skirts swirling around her, her giddy excitement at marrying Wilas Tyrell bringing a pretty flush in her cheeks.

As she stares at her mirrored reflection now, she looks nothing like that pretty, naive girl. But nor does she have that pale, terrified look she had gained on being told she was to marry the Imp instead of Wilas; she takes that as a good omen.

She straightens the long skirts of her gown, the grey wool feeling familiar under her fingers. She hadn't wanted to spend money on a new, opulent gown with the treasury almost empty and Jon's debt to the Iron Bank still to be partly repaid. Instead, the maids helped her dye her best gown in Stark grey colours, Wylla Manderly presenting her with bright, white Myrish lace that they had sewn onto the sleeves and the bodice.

She looks at the little wolves and trout running all across the hem of her skirts, honouring the two Houses that her blood belongs to, and then at the huge direwolf that Old Nan helped her embroider onto her maiden's cloak. The embroidery is a little askew in some places, thanks to Old Nan's shaky hand and deteriorating eyesight. But Sansa loves it all the more for it; she doesn't have Mother (and _how_ she tries not to think of what they had turned Mother into) or Father or her brothers, but she still has Old Nan, one of the last people alive from the Winterfell she had grown up in... and she has grand-uncle Brynden Blackfish too – that's far more than she had at her first wedding.

"You look beautiful, my sweet girl," whispers Old Nan in her croaky voice, caressing her braided hair with a tenderness that Sansa hasn't felt in many moons, making sudden tears prick at her eyes.

"Thank you, Old Nan," she whispers, a queer feeling in her belly as Gilly fastens her cloak over her shoulders.

It has been two moons since their betrothal – time enough for all her Riverlords to arrive at Winterfell, for all the preparations for housing so many people in the castle which is still being restored, to procure coin and food for the massive wedding feast everyone expects… time enough for Sansa to ready herself for her wedding. But she still finds herself a little nervous now, almost wanting to wring her hands like she used to do when she was a little girl, afraid that Mother would be unhappy if she found out that Sansa had filched the lemon cakes made for the visiting Lord Ryswell.

_I am prepared for this,_ she tells herself. She has had weeks to get used to the fact that she is marrying Jon; far, far longer than she had to prepare for the terrible thought of wedding Tyrion Lannister.

_Lord Tyrion was good to me,_ she thinks of her first husband, not wanting to be unkind to the man even in her thoughts.

But she cannot help but contrast her horror of marrying the dwarf lord with the eagerness she is feeling now, hidden under the nervousness.

_It is because I know Jon will be a good king and a kind husband. He is a good man, better than most._

She thinks of Jon waving at the smallfolk, modest, seeming almost embarrassed at the cheers, nothing of the arrogance Joffrey had. She thinks of Jon speaking with Lords Manderly and Glover last evening, his voice soft but carrying an innate sense of command, speaking his mind only after he lent them a patient ear. She thinks of how the lords and smallfolk alike view him with respect, with a sense of pride and trust for this man who so resembles Eddard Stark, with his dark hair and that long Stark face and those grey eyes…

_You raised your son to be a good man, Father,_ she thinks. For all that Jon is only her cousin, he is Ned Stark’s son, from his nobleness to his innate kindness to his deep sense of honour... _He is like you, Father, even now, even though he is a mere shroud of the Jon we know. He may not remember it, he may not realise it, but he still is everything that you brought him up to be, and I hope he shall be as good a lord husband to me as you were to Mother._

_We even look like Father and Mother,_ she thinks. Lord Glover had remarked upon that – of the great resemblance Jon bears to Father and Sansa bears to her Mother.

_We shall be like them,_ she thinks, a little flutter in her belly – a flutter of hope and eagerness and another sentiment that she feels for Jon, one she cannot put a finger on. _We shall be like them_ , _happy and content._

_But they weren’t always happy together,_ a cynical voice reminds her, _Mother could never forget the shadow of the woman who stood between them, even if the woman only turned out to be Lady Lyanna, Father’s sister._

And suddenly, her thoughts begin to race in a direction she doesn’t want them to: she thinks of Father and Mother, and the bust of Lyanna in the crypts, looking so much like an older Arya would have looked.

_Father could never forget Lyanna,_ she thinks, her mouth suddenly dry, _Father could never forget her… for the love he bore Lyanna, Father even dishonoured Mother by claiming Jon was his bastard._

She is reminded of Jon and Nymeria now, of how his longing for Arya hasn’t yet abated, at how Ghost’s ears twitch every time Old Nan mutters something about wild she-wolves with dark hair, how Jon haunts the room that was Arya’s, how he stares for hours at Lyanna’s bust in the crypts.

_I thought it was because she is his mother… but what if he watches Lyanna and looks for Arya in her? Everyone tells him how much Arya resembled our aunt… for every hour he speaks to me, he spends two in the crypts, and a dozen with Nymeria…_

She sits down on her chair, the flutter in her belly replaced by queasiness.

_I will not think of that now,_ she tells herself sternly, _Jon is to be my lord husband._

Nymeria can follow Jon around all she wants, she can glare at Sansa all she wants, but Jon is to _wed_ her today, and she shall not let the doubts, which she has tried so hard to supress over the past weeks, to take root in her heart.

A knock on the door rouses her from her thoughts.

It's Uncle Brynden.

He stares at her for a long moment, blue eyes glistening. And she knows he is looking for her lady mother in her, his dearest niece.  She smiles at him; but she can't help but wonder, a little unkindly, about when her last remaining family will see her for who she is instead of looking for others in her. At least Uncle Brynden searches for and finds Mother in Sansa's Tully features, unlike Jon, who stares at her when he thinks she isn’t looking, searching and searching and searching, but finding nothing. But she doesn’t want to think of _that_ Jon now, the one who still spends hours in the godswood with the wolves, the one who goes nowhere without Nymeria, the one who sometimes looks at Sansa as if he doesn’t know her at all, as if he wishes she were _someone_ else…

She smiles at Uncle Brynden instead, hoping he sees _Mother_ in her, the Catelyn Stark everyone knew and loved, not what she was rumoured to have become. The thought of Lady Stoneheart (one that she tries so hard to avoid) makes her shudder, with a pang of sorrow that almost physically pains her. And for once, she wishes she could forget things like Jon has. She doesn't want to remember Mother as the vengeful Lady Stoneheart, but as the kind, gentle, loving mother she had been to her five children.

Uncle Brynden smiles at her, kissing her with an affection that makes her feel like a little girl again, when Father would gather her in his arms and kiss her brow when she was younger.

"Come on, child," he says. She takes his arm, and they walk towards the godswood, Jeyne and Gilly and Old Nan following them.

"Jon is a good man," says her lord uncle, as they walk through the Great Hall, past the courtyard and into the deepening trees of the godswood. But there's something in his tone that makes her wonder whether he suspects it too, what she tries her best not to dwell on: that Jon is more wolf than man, and more of a _ghost_ than he is Ghost. "For all his dragon blood, Ned Stark is the father who brought him up. He shall be a good husband to you, child, and a good father to your children like your father was to you."

_Children._ Sansa can't help but smile at the thought – a little Robb with grey eyes and dark hair who would be King after Jon and her, a little Bran with red hair and blue eyes to be Lord of Riverrun. Uncle Brynden will like that, she knows – a little boy with the Tully look to take the lordship that was meant for late Uncle Edmure and his murdered son.

Perhaps, Jon would want that too, she thinks – a family of their own making, Eddard and Robb and Bran and maybe even a Rickon. Maybe even a little Catelyn for her mother, if Jon won't mind naming his child after the woman who was always cold to him… And an _Arya,_ she decides… a little girl who will look just like their sister, all wild and messy-haired. _Jon will love that,_ she thinks, trying not to wonder whether he will love this Arya as much as he loves the sister he still pines for.

They reach the heart tree, her bannermen from both her kingdoms gathered around them; and before she knows it she is already midway through the wedding ceremony.

“Who comes?” asks Jon; his beard is trimmed short today, and he has donned the splendid doublet in Stark colours that she sewed for him, Longclaw at his hip. He looks at neither her nor the Blackfish, staring at the fluttering leaves and the sad eyes of the heart tree instead.

Nymeria and Ghost stand side by side, the she-wolf’s eyes staring unblinkingly at Sansa with a sentiment she cannot recognise. Is it wariness, she wonders, or is it a sense of envy she sees in those glimmering golden eyes, or is it loss and longing? She decides she doesn't want to know, not now, not when she thinks she already knows the answer.

She looks at the heart tree instead. She does not want to think of Nymeria, not when the wolf has seemed so angry and _sad_ since the day she asked Jon to wed her.

“Who comes before the gods?” asks Jon.

“Sansa,” replies Uncle Brynden, “of House Stark. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”

“Me,” says Jon, his voice firm but quiet; he pauses only a little before he goes on: “Jon of House Stark.”

She is pleased to hear the words.

_I am Jon Snow,_ he had told her when they spoke of the wedding vows, Nymeria’s huge head lying in his lap where he sat beneath his usual place under the heart tree.

_Robb legitimised you,_ she had retorted, _you are Jon Stark, and you shall claim me as such. We are Starks, Jon, and we shall rule together._

She sees the irony of the words, of course. He cannot be Jon Stark when they are marrying claiming they are first cousins and not half-siblings. Despite Jon’s parentage being widely known and even Queen Daenerys accepting the truth of it, many Northmen still gaze at Jon in disbelief at times, seeing only Eddard Stark’s long face and grey eyes and dark hair, nothing of the Targeryan’s famed silver-haired beauty. Some of the wildlings even whisper about how cousins shouldn't marry, let alone two people who were brought up as brother and sister; it is a sin against the gods, they say.

But there is nothing to be done about that. He was her brother, he is her cousin, and the blood of the First Men and the Starks still flows through his veins, evident in his features that are as Stark as her own are Tully; and she is firm that he shall claim her as a Stark of Winterfell.

“I take this man,” she says, her voice unwavering.

Jon takes her hand in his warm one, and they both bow before the heart tree.

_Bless us, you old gods,_ Sansa prays, _bless us to hold our kingdom, to rule over our realm well, with peace and justice. Bless us with babes who shall carry the Stark name and live long after us._

She does not pray for Jon to love her as she might have once, years ago. She isn’t a little girl with her head full of naïve dreams. She is a woman grown now, and she knows that love is of least concern in matches that are made for the realm.

Jon unclasps her cloak and replaces it with a similar Stark one, the Greatjon bellowing for the groom to carry his wife to the castle, the other boisterous men joining him.

Jon lips twitch a little – even that smallest hint of a smile making a sudden spurt of joy blossom in her. He smiles so rarely that she treasures every one of his grins.

And then suddenly, Jon scoops her up in his arms. There’s a little flush in her cheeks at the gesture, at the unexpected and welcome closeness to Jon; and Sansa thinks that they perhaps _shall_ make a content marriage if not a loving one.

* * *

 

The feast goes on for hours. The North has had precious little to celebrate since her lord father first left Winterfell years ago with Arya and her. And now that there's finally a Stark in Winterfell – two Starks, to be precise – everyone is in high spirits, feasting and drinking and dancing, with richer food and more wine than Sansa has seen since she left the Vale.

Hoster Blackwood dances with Wynafryd Manderly; Lord Mallister with Lady Maege; Alys Kartstark and her Thenn husband dance too, the Magnar dancing a little unsurely, their toddler son looking so adorable as he tries imitate his parents and dances with one of Lord Wull's little granddaughters. The Greatjon seems already drunk; his hand is around a serving girl's waist as he guffaws loudly at something Old Flint says, while Lords Mallister and Vance and Glover, and even Larence, the new Lord of the Hornwood, are engaged in a cordial discussion.

_These are my bannermen,_ she thinks, glancing at Jon. _These are_ our _people, Riverlords and Northern lords alike, and we shall lead them together._

Even as she watches the Blackwood boy and the Manderly girl dance, her mind is already at work. She knows how different the two kingdoms they rule are: the North bleak and stern and cold, like its people, with ice in their veins and unbridled courage in their hard hearts; and the Riverlands bright and proud, entrenched deeply in Southron culture. She shall need to bridge the divide between the two, _like Robb did,_ she thinks. _The King in the North never ruled the Trident, but they all chose Robb as their King, respected him and loved_ _him and died for him_ _... Lord Blackwood and Uncle Brynden even flew the direwolf banners long after Mother and Robb were dead._

She shall make them love her too, she vows. She shall knit the two kingdoms together, with justice and love, like Robb would have done, foster close ties between her Northern and Southron bannermen - _our bannermen,_ she amends, for they are now as much Jon's as they are hers. Perhaps she can have Hoster marry Wynafryd, if she will have him. The Blackwoods have been her staunchest supporters as the Manderlys have been Jon's once Rickon was lost to them forever; she hopes to reward them both with this match.

The Magnar of Thenn suddenly twirls Lady Alys around, pulling her in for an unabashed, deep kiss that makes Sansa flush and sends some of the drunk men hollering. It isn't the physical intimacy that makes Sansa look away, but the affection between the pair, the love that is clear in both their eyes, their manner, the little glances and the light touches when they speak to each other, the tenderness with which the Thenn clasped Alys' hand and asked her for a dance. They are so different, a highborn lady and a wildling leader, but they seem so close… _like they’re in love,_ her younger self would have said.

_I want that,_ she thinks suddenly, earnestly, the wine she has drunk making her voice thoughts she would never have admitted otherwise. _I want what Alys and Sigorn have… the love that Mother and Father had_ _,_ whispers the little voice in her mind, sounding so much like her younger self – a voice she has supressed for so many years now.

_Father grew to love Mother, even though she wasn’t even meant to marry him at first, and Mother slowly fell in love with Father even though she disliked the thought of Father loving Jon’s mother. Perhaps, Jon shall one day love me as his lady wife, too._

It is a childish wish, she knows. Her marriage is one made to forge a new Kingdom together, not for love. But she can't help but want that – to be loved, to be wanted and cherished, not because she is Eddard Stark and Hoster Tully's heiress, not because she is one of the prettiest maidens in all the Seven Kingdoms, not out of lust or greed like Littlefinger and Marillion and all the men who desired her over the years did, but for _herself_ , as a man wants the woman he truly loves.

_I am being silly,_ she rebukes herself sharply.

Life isn't a song; she has learnt that over the years, since the time they chopped her father's head right before her eyes. She is a Queen now, a Queen in her own right; she has her smallfolk and her lords and her kingdom to think of, not long-forgotten dreams of the child she had been.

But despite it all, she finds herself turning to her new husband, the wine giving her courage. Unlike how he has been a little vocal around her recently, Jon has barely spoken to her today beyond a few courteous words. And she realises that she wants to talk to him now, even if it is only about the realm and their lords, she wants to clasp his hand again, like she did in the godswood that day.

"Shall we dance, my king?" she asks him.

But Jon doesn't even look at her; he is staring at something to their right. Startled, Sansa realises that Nymeria and Ghost, both standing beside Jon, are staring at the same scene, Ghost and Jon's eyes even blinking in an eerie tandem that makes gooseflesh erupt all over her arms. The three wolves ( _for Jon is as much a wolf as Ghost,_ she thinks, shivering) are watching the kitchen maid’s twin boys playing in the corner, wielding large spoons like makeshift swords… like Robb and Jon used to, in the courtyard on snowy evenings, until Ser Rodrick led them back to the castle.

"Jon?” she says softly, knowing she should feel slighted at the way he is neglecting her to watch the sparring boys instead. But something in Jon’s expression – something that makes him seem truly, _unusually_ human – makes the feeble anger dissipate almost immediately.

Jon doesn't reply; it is as if he hasn't even heard her, as if he is watching and _remembering_ – or so she thinks, and so she hopes. He keeps watching the boys, as do the two direwolves.

_Do you remember, Jon,_ she wants to ask him; an unfamiliarly fierce hope blooms in her heart _. Does it remind you of playing at swords with Robb like those boys are, Jon?_

She doesn't really remember much of Jon and Robb's games. She was more interested in dolls and songs than knowing what her brothers were up to. _But Arya would have known_ , she thinks, a little jealously. Arya was forever following the boys around, always wanting to be with Jon, always wanting to join in their boyish games than playing with Sansa and Jeyne and Beth.

"Jon?" she repeats, laying her hand on his arm.

It is Ghost who turns to her first, and _then_ Jon, who looks as if he had forgotten she was even there beside him, as if he had forgotten this is their _wedding_ day. Ghost nips softly at her hand, but Nymeria doesn’t even spare her a glance, as if Sansa doesn’t even matter to her at all, _like Arya did after she got into a fight with me,_ she remembers almost sadly.

"Shall we dance, Jon?" she asks him again, though her eagerness for the physical closeness to him is subdued now. Instead, her mind is brimming with curiosity; she wants to know what Jon is thinking, whether he is remembering. She wants to talk to him of their family, of Father and their brothers – something Jon never seems to want to do.

"Yes, my queen," Jon says, and they walk to the centre of the dancing couples, cheers resounding in the Great Hall when the assembled people see their King leading their Queen for the dance.

Jon puts his hand on her waist, the heat of his palm making her skin feel warm, and they begin dancing to the music.

She waits as they dance, for Jon to begin a conversation, to say something to his new wife, to speak of why he was watching those boys. But he only smiles politely at her – more to oblige their guests, she thinks, like he did when he carried her out of the godswood in his arms.

"When we were little," she says, deciding to take the first step of speaking of their childhood. "You used to practice dancing with me, sometimes. You are as clumsy as it now as you were back then."

"I doubt I got many opportunities to dance at the Wall, my lady," he says, his tone light. He is _looking_ at her now, unlike the vacant, absent looks he gives her at times, making her smile in delight.

She watches him eagerly, not even minding that he steps on her toes twice; she wants to speak, to make _him_ speak. It is so rarely that she hears him talk of things other than the castle and their lands and people and their plans for the future of their realm.

But when he says nothing, she decides to take the lead again, to talk of the last big feast they had before King Robert's arrival, on Rickon's first nameday, when the songs and drinking had gone on well past midnight – a time when they were all together and happy… a family… _because Jon deserves to have happy memories of the past._

But she barely gets a single word out when Jon looks away from her, looking at something behind her, a sudden flicker of emotion in his eyes.

"Jon?" she says, but when his gaze returns to her, that earlier familiarity he looked at her with is gone.

"Yes, my queen?" he says.

But before she can speak, Jon twirls her around, and she sees what he had been looking at, what had brought that flicker in his eyes: it is _Nymeria_ ; the she-wolf is staring at Ghost so intensely ( _more like a girl than a wolf,_ Sansa thinks with a chill up her spine) that she _has_ to look away, just like she did when the Magnar kissed Lady Alys.

_I am imagining things,_ she tells herself sternly, _Nymeria is a wolf; she is not Arya._

But she remembers Lord Reed’s words as clearly as if he had told them to her just yesterday: about Wargs leaving a part of themselves behind in the beast they warged into… _more girl than wolf, more Arya than Nymeria,_ says a sickening voice in her mind.

And when she looks at Ghost, there's no mistaking that those blood-red eyes, gleaming redder in the light from the many torches, contain the same look that _Jon_ 's did barely moments ago… _more man than wolf, more Jon than Ghost,_ repeats the voice; and this time, she finds it harder to ignore it.

_If Ghost is Jon and Nymeria is Arya and they are looking at each other like this… with this yearning, with such intensity and love —_ she cannot complete the thought, she _fears_ to complete the sentence.

"When you were younger," she says swiftly, collecting her thoughts and herself, wanting Jon to look at her again, wanting to refute her own suspicions and fears, "Robb and you used to play like those two boys you were watching."

Jon glances at her now, a little eagerly. "We did?"

"Yes. Ser Rodrick—our master-at-arms,” she adds hastily, before Jon can remember that he has _forgotten_ Ser Rodrick, “He allowed you only wooden swords when you were younger. And Robb and you used to spend all evening playing with them… you were little boys, but you both thought yourselves mighty knights and heroes…”

She had only watched them a couple of times, but she tries to embellish her memories with her own imagination now, wanting to tell Jon of the memorable times he had shared with their brother.

_I want to fill his heart,_ she thinks earnestly, _with joy and smiles and the happiest memories of our family._

“Robb always loved to be Aemon the Dragonknight,” she goes on. In her eagerness, she even forgets that she usually doesn’t mention any Targeryans to him; it only serves to make Jon brood more. But he doesn’t seem to mind it now; he watches her eagerly, as if he is hanging on to every word she utters. “And you would say you were the Young Dragon, or Ser Ryam Redwyne of the Kingsguard, and Robb would—”

“And _Arya_?” he interrupts her; there is naked hunger in his gaze now, she observes with a little jolt; his hand on her waist tugs her a little closer, making her inhale his scent that smells of weirwood leaves and snow and man and wolf. “Did she play with Robb and me, too? What did she want to be, when she and Bran played at swords with branches in the godswood?”

Her breath hitches somewhere in her throat.

_How can he know that?_ she asks herself, her mouth dry and her extremities seeming suddenly cold despite the constant warmth Jon exudes. _He remembers nothing of his past—and most of the people who knew Arya and Bran are long dead. How does he know this, when even I had forgotten?_

“Did Old Nan tell you that?” she asks him casually, as if nothing is amiss, her expression unchanged, but her heart fluttering in her chest, her gaze moving to Nymeria despite herself.

“No,” he replies shortly. She feels his shoulder tensing under her palm, and she knows him enough by now to know he won’t speak of this again. She swallows her unease, her questions and even the little anger.

_Did Nymeria tell you that?_ she wants to scream at him. _Arya is my sister too, not only yours! I want Arya back too! Does Arya still live in Nymeria? Is Arya still alive? If she is, why isn’t she coming back to us? And if she is dead like the rest of our siblings, why is it that you talk to her wolf but not to_ me _, your living, breathing sister, the last of your family, your wife now?_

She blinks back the sudden moisture pricking at her eyes.

_I’m being unkind and unfair,_ she tells herself. _Lord Reed told me what happened to Jon when he came back to life… how he only remembered Arya and Winterfell and nothing else… how he_ wanted _nothing else. He isn’t the Jon I knew. But he is trying… he even spoke so much to me in the past few days… he is trying, and I have to give him time. I have to be kind to him… he is my husband now… the last of my family…_

_Family, Duty, Honour,_ she chants in her mind, the words of her mother’s House...

But she cannot help push away the feeling of loneliness, of being alone despite being in the arms of her brother… her cousin… her lord husband now…

_Family, Duty, Honour,_ she chants. And when Uncle Brynden comes to ask her silent husband for a dance with her, she doesn't mind the loss of Jon's warmth at all, as she watches him go back to his place with his wolves.

* * *

 

The merriment finally draws to a close. She has danced with most of the noblemen, spoken to everyone from Lord Bracken to lord from Skaagos who told her a little about Rickon in his strange, garbled version of the Common Tongue (she has stored every word about Rickon safely in her memory – she means to tell it to Jon, to remind him of the brother who was barely three when they both saw him alive last); she has drunk rather more wine than she should have, and sent the choicest bits of the feast to her lords. Sansa hasn’t eaten much herself, her belly too full of doubts and fears to have place for the delicious food.

Jon hasn’t eaten much too… but for an altogether different reason, she suspects.

_He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he isn’t a man anymore,_ she remembers one of the maids whispering last moon. She had sent the maid away, of course… she couldn’t have anyone speak ill of their King. But she knows there was some truth to the maid’s words. Jon barely eats, and she has never yet seen him sleep.

“Bedding! Bedding!” the shouts begin, and her heart skips a frightened beat. She isn’t _frightened,_ really. She is a Queen now, a married woman, and she has to be bedded… she is far more eager to consummate her second marriage than she ever was for her first… she wants those babes she dreams of, an heir to their kingdom, of little sons and daughters to sing lullabies to… and somewhere, deep within, despite herself, she wants to feel Jon, to feel his warm mouth on hers, to feel his warm hands on her...

But now, with the chants for the bedding loudening, she doesn’t relish the thoughts of unwanted hands touching her again, hungry eyes staring at her breasts in that lecherous way like Joffrey and his courtiers had; she doesn’t want them tugging at her gown like Littlefinger used to do, doesn’t want them seeing her naked, scared and vulnerable…

But she lifts her chin. _I am a Stark of Winterfell, and courage runs in my blood._

“Bedding, the bedding!” the chants are louder now, the lords getting to their feet as Sansa does too, hoping they don’t see the trembling that she cannot stop.

_I am a Stark of Winterfell,_ she tells herself.

She finds her chair pulled away, as the men gather around her.

The women crowd around Jon, who is suddenly still, she notices, his eyes on Ghost.

She prepares herself to feel the groping hands, the hungry eyes. She is a little thankful that the Greatjon is in the huge crowd of men; he is her staunchest champion since she rescued him and the Northern prisoners from the Twins, and she knows that a simple command from her would make him send anyone who seeks to harm her flying. But she will not ask him to.

_I am a Stark of Winterfell._

But before Lord Hornwood’s hand even moves to her sleeve, Jon speaks, loud and clear: “There shall be no bedding, my lords.”

There is a collective sigh of disappointment, even from the women. But Sansa doesn’t quite care about it as Jon leads her to their room, taking her hand in hers.

“Thank you, Jon,” she tells him quietly, when the door is shut and they are seated on the featherbed. “What you said, about the bedding—”

“You didn’t want it,” he says quietly, staring at something behind her. “I wouldn’t have you do anything you do not want to, my lady.”

The concern in his tone almost makes her heart leap with hope again. “How did you know I didn’t want the bedding to happen?” she asks him softly, a little curious now, wondering if he had been observing her, if he cared about her enough for him to have guessed her mind.

“ _I_ didn’t know,” he says, meeting her gaze now. “Ghost was watching you,” he murmurs almost inaudibly, as if the words weren’t even meant for her to hear. “Ghost knew.”

_Ghost_ told him? The direwolf must have sniffed it, _felt_ it – my discomfort, my fear. _But if Jon is Ghost… Jon was watching me too, along with Ghost,_ she realises, her earlier hurt at his behaviour abating, as she clings on to this little thing that gives her hope for their future together.

She has noticed Ghost watching her often these past two moons, not following her everywhere like Nymeria used to in the Riverlands, but with his red gaze always on her, watching, observing mutely.

_Was that you, Jon? Were you watching me from within Ghost?_ After all, even Lord Reed says Jon is one of the most powerful skinchangers – his ability reaching unforeseen proportions due to the time he spent in Ghost after he was stabbed.

_Do you watch me, Jon? Is that why Ghost never seems to take his eyes off me when I am around him? Is that why Ghost seeks me out when I am feeling lonely? Is that why he lets me caress him when he doesn’t let anyone else even close to him?_

She _looks_ at Jon, in a way she never has before, feeling suddenly light-headed. She sees his long, dark hair and somehow doesn’t see Father or Arya in those dark locks. She sees how tall he is, taller than Father was, how lithe his built is – _like his real father, like Rhaegar,_ she thinks. She looks at his long face, but she knows that his nose is different than Father’s was… and his eyes suddenly don’t remind her of her family, but she finds herself wanting to delve into those dark pools of grey, she finds herself wanting him to keep looking at her, finds coils of desire unfurling gradually in her belly.

_It is the wine,_ she tells herself. But she doesn’t care anymore. She wants him, her _husband_ , not her brother or her cousin… she wants to love and be loved, she wants to divest herself of her maidenhood that she so painstakingly defended from Petyr and Harry the Heir’s lustful advances.

_Should I undress, my lord?_ she wants to ask him, but unlike the last time she asked that to her lord husband, she finds that she isn’t asking it merely out of a sense of duty. She wants Jon to kiss her lips, she wants Jon to touch her in ways she blushes at imagining…

“Jon,” she says quietly, and before she can get nervous again, she reaches out to him, clasping his hand.

His eyes bore into hers, thinking, watching. And his hand comes up to cup her cheek, her skin feeling warm again, warmth beginning to pool in her belly, as something flits through Jon’s eyes... and for the first time since she met him, she finds herself thinking what she never thought before: _more man than wolf,_ she thinks.

“Jon,” she whispers breathlessly, watching his pupils beginning to dilate. She wants him, she knows, like a woman wants a man, like a wife wants her husband. “Jon, I want—”

There’s a loud howl, seeming to come from the godswood.

But before she can even think that it is Nymeria who is howling, Jon pulls back from her as if scalded.

“Jon?” she whispers, taken aback, and then aghast as he backs away from her. “We are married now, Jon. We must—”

“Forgive me, my queen,” he says, turning away from her, as Nymeria continues to howl.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work isn't Beta'ed, so any mistakes are my own.  
> A Jon POV to follow, perhaps, to make things clearer :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments. I guess it's a little too late in the day to reply to them, but I really, really appreciate them all :)

He runs, faster and faster. The castle walls, the melting mounds of snow, and the celebrating men rushing past him in a blur. He is  faster than the cold breeze that he sprints through, faster than the startled guards he runs past, faster than the call of the heart tree which is a mere faint whisper by the time he is past the godswood.

He does not know where he is headed to, but he can hear _her_ following him, as quick as he is, quicker even.

 _Leave me alone,_ he warns her.

But she is stubborn, this sister of his. She comes after him, spotting him even through the snow that lends him a blanket of invisibility, hearing him even though he is the most soundless creature in the silence of the night.

For once, he hates that he shares a mind with her, that he cannot keep her away from his thoughts, neither the wolfish ones nor the human ones.

He still persists though, running on and on, his legs having a mind of their own, until he finds a heavy weight lunging at him, pushing him sideways and throwing him off his intended path: it is her, of course. Nymeria.

He makes to snap his jaw at her in fury, but it is she who growls angrily, yellow eyes golden in the moonlight.

 _Pack,_ she growls. _Together._

He only snorts, looking away from her, feeling a queer sort of irritation with her – an emotion that belongs more to the man that he truly is, not the wolf he is hiding in now.

He knows what his sudden annoyance has stemmed from: Nymeria’s loud howl that made him turn away from the pretty red-haired woman, from _Sansa,_ whose wide blue eyes had turned suddenly big and hurt as he backed away from her, the unspoken pain in her words making him feel strangely sad… and _guilty_ – not the usual guilt he feels: for the lives he couldn’t save, for the lives that ended just because his foolish father and foolish mother saw it fit to plunge the realm into war for their selfish desires, for the lies Eddard Stark had to utter for Jon Snow to survive… This is a different kind of guilt, arising from the duty he bears to Sansa, from the vows he swore under the heart tree… and something else that his half-wolf mind cannot yet identify.

 _Brother,_ Nymeria growls again, though her tone is softer now, as if she senses the conundrum of emotions the human part of him is feeling, as if she knows that even seeking refuge in Ghost isn’t enough to drive his conflict away tonight.

 _Brother,_ she says again, nudging at him with her snout. He leans into her, sniffing in her scent that reminds him of a time long past – of a skinny girl with messy hair and a mischievous glint in her eyes… _Arya…_

And just like that, with the slightest memory of _her,_ his irritation with Nymeria is forgotten.

He nips at his she-wolf’s ear now, almost playfully. And as he looks around them, breathing in the cool air and the scent of the woods, he is suddenly glad to be away from the man-rock, from the crowds of lords and ladies and men and women, from the pungent smells and the raucous noises, from the chains of kingship and courtesy and duty that bind him tightly to the weirwood throne – but his joy is only momentary; for when he thinks of Winterfell, with its grey walls, and its hot pools, and the crypts with the kings and their swords, and the distance that now lies between him and the castle, he feels that familiar ache begin to prick at him – one he has known since the moment he arose from the flames, desperate for only two things: Winterfell and Arya.

 _Brother,_ Nymeria says again, rousing him from his faint longing for Winterfell, running away from him and coaxing him to catch up with her.

He follows her, like he has since the moment he met her at the Trident.

He catches up with her soon, Nymeria back to her usual self now that she knows he isn’t miffed with her, now that they’re together again – brother and sister, man and wolf.

On and on they go, as he lets Ghost take over, listening for signs of prey. But all the while something keeps nagging at him – it is his need for Winterfell, he thinks. But something tells him it isn’t; for _her_ face keeps flashing in his mind’s eyes, with a gleam in those blue eyes and her erratic breaths, her hand holding his… that moment when he had _truly_ felt like a man again, with desires of own that had nothing to do with the castle or his lost sister… and her _hair,_ her red hair that brought hints of memories buried deep within his mind – of a wild girl with fire in her hair singing a sad song about Giants, moving above him under the furs… _Ygritte,_ they tell him her name was. Perhaps, it was those faint memories of Ygritte that made him desire Sansa, he decides… and lets it go, too weary and conflicted to dwell on it now, too relieved to find a semblance of calm in Ghost’s wolfish mind to think of the many things that ail Jon Snow—Jon _Stark_ now.

He lets the train of thought trail off, catching up with Nymeria who is racing ahead, the night silent but for the buzzing of insects and the fluttering of the leaves and their paws heavy on the uneven ground.

On and on they go together, Nymeria eagerly, while he merely looks around quietly at the tall oaks, the ancient ironwoods, the towering sentinels, at the rare nocturnal bird flying overhead, and then, slowly, at the little clearing in the distance with that massive misshapen stone lying in the middle.

There’s something he knows of this particular place, he thinks, his paws slowing down but his heart racing for some reason, feeling suddenly light-headed. There’s a strange sort of feeling in his belly, in his heart even, making him feel as if there’s something just within his grasp but yet too far for him to touch it… Something tells him that he’s been here, on his own horse, with a group of men he once knew. And when he shuts his eyes on a sudden whim, he can hear _them_ , their voices.

 _Race you to that boulder, Snow!_ the fluttering leaves of the oak whisper, in a boyish voice that haunts his dreams sometimes.

 _Robb!_ he thinks, his heart skipping a beat, picturing a blurry vision of a red-haired lad who comes rushing at Jon with a wooden sword, laughing all the while – a picture that drifts away before Jon he can even see it clearly.

 _Be careful now, lads, the bear could be around us somewhere,_ warns a voice that flies away with the light breeze, a voice that sounds stern yet concerned at the same time, reminding him faintly of the happier days gone by, what seems like a thousand years ago, of a bearded man with a solemn face that always broke into a little smile for his bastard son.

 _Father!_ he thinks, _that was Father. He brought us here, hunting._

There’s a sudden surge of joy he feels – something that happens oh-so-rarely that he’s taken aback for a moment.

He tries harder now, his eyes scrunched shut. He wants to see them in his mind’s eyes, he wants to remember the brother he knows he still loves, remember his blue eyes ( _like Sansa’s,_ he thinks), remember the long face that belonged to Father ( _Uncle, he was my Uncle,_ corrects his betrayed soul), remember the familiar-faced young man who was riding alongside Father, chuckling at something Robb said ( _Jory, was he called?)._

But before he can grab at the little wisps of the voices, the weak threads of the memories, they’re _gone_ , leaving only the silent oak and ironwood staring coldly at him when he opens his eyes.

 _No! Father, wait!_ he thinks, groping desperately for the fleeing images, the disappearing memories, feeling blindly for them, but ending up with nothing but the familiar agony that seems to tear him apart at times like these.

He tries to picture them again, refusing to give up when he was so close – the red-haired boy, and the dark-haired man… but they’re gone now, turning blurry and fainter in his mind’s eyes until there’s nothing left of them.

And he finds that he wants to howl, he wants to scream, he wants to sob for the people he doesn’t remember losing, but whose loss pricks painfully at him every moment, whether he’s awake or sleeping.

 _Father! Robb!_ he wants to shout for them, beg them to remind him of the years he spent with them: sparring with Robb and listening to Father’s tales as they sat by the hearth. But they’re long dead, he knows, their bones lying peacefully in their tombs in the crypts, while Jon Snow remains alive in this accursed second life of his, drowning in the familiar disappointment, the suffocating sorrow – though it is more acute now, borne out of the emptiness and frustration of years of being unable to remember his past.

He finds himself turning to his only confidante.

 _Nymeria!_ he begs, looking at the grey-furred wolf, pleading, wanting to remember the hunt Father took them on, wanting to remember whether he beat Robb at the race, whether they managed to hunt down the bear, just remember how Father and Robb _looked_ – not those silent, cold statues in the crypts, but the living, breathing men they had been.

 _Nymeria,_ he calls to her, meeting her yellow-eyed gaze.

But she doesn’t remember. She wasn’t there at all. It was long before she was born to their dead mother, in that litter of six pups of which only he and her remain.

But she _senses_ it – his pain, his loss, and his longing. And she howls, long and loud, a howl of pain and mourning, of all that they both have lost.  From far away, he hears her wolf pack joining in with their own howls, the night air coming alive with the calls of a hundred wolves.

 _Look,_ Nymeria tells him, whimpering as she feels the onslaught of his sorrow. _Look, Jon,_ she says, and she shows him what she knows will make him happy again, which will take away the grief that is threatening to drown _her_ , too: a picture of _that_ day, with the clothes strewn all around the open trunk, a thin little sword lying in its soft-leathered sheath, of the skinny girl putting her arms around him.

 _I wish you were coming with us,_ she says, the dark-haired girl in Nymeria’s memory.

 _Arya,_ he thinks, _Arya!_

He _remembers_ now, feeling a warmth that is welcome despite the much-hated, ever-present heat in his resurrected body, a warmth that seems to seep through his fur into his very bones and his very soul – or whatever is left of it.

He remembers how he had mussed up her hair now, remembers how those dark, messy locks felt under his fingers, he remembers how she had run to him for that last hug, showering him with kisses.

 _Arya,_ he thinks tremulously – feeling overwhelming joy and extreme sorrow at the same time, something that always arises whenever he remembers something of Arya. But along with those utterly differing emotions, there’s the pain as well when he recalls that she isn’t here with him, the sister he so loves, the only person he truly remembers loving. But it is a different kind of pain, this – a constant ache in his abominable heart, a yearning that never leaves him, that hasn’t let him sleep peacefully since the day he awoke to this second life.

 _Arya, Arya, Arya,_ he chants, feeling her lips on his cheek, her thin arms around his neck, the joy sparkling in her eyes when he gave her that sword. _Arya, little sister._

But suddenly, before he can touch her unruly hair, before he can clutch her skinny form even closer to himself, he finds her arms disappearing from around his neck, her image seeming to blur.

“Jon!” she calls to him.

He reaches out to her, panicked, unwilling to let her go.

“Jon!” she repeats, “Jon!”

“Arya!” he calls, frightened that he shall never see her again, desperate to hold on to the girl he loves. “Arya, wait!”

“JON!”

He wakes up with a start, finding a pair of blue eyes staring down at him, wide with panic. It takes him a moment to realise that Arya is gone, that Arya was never there at all, that _he_ was never in the woods. Ghost was.

 _I was in Ghost,_ he thinks, _I_ was _Ghost. And Arya was never here. It was all a dream… Nymeria’s memory of us…_

“Jon,” Sansa repeats, still panicked. He finds himself wanting to shy away from her hand that is on his hot, damp forehead, brushing his hair away. “Are you alright, Jon? What happened?” She asks him, voice thick with worry.

She is still in her wedding gown, he notes, only now remembering what had happened just hours ago when he had turned away from her, when she had stared at him, hurt and pained, when Nymeria had called out to him, reminded him of who he is and who _she_ is.

“I am fine,” he hears himself saying; though for half a moment he is far away, lying down next to Nymeria in the woods as she licks at his fur affectionately, snuggling into him, sharing her warmth in the cold of the night. “I am fine, my lady,” he repeats.

“You were shouting,” Sansa says quietly; and he can _hear_ her heartbeats slowing back to normal, almost as if he is Ghost and not Jon. “You were shouting for _her,_ for Arya.”

There’s a terseness in her tone, some note of accusation in her eyes that make him look away from her, something that feels like guilt and shame wrestling in his gut.

He is her _husband_ now, he knows. This isn’t fair to her. He isn’t supposed to wake up screaming in the middle of the night – their _wedding_ night – with another lady’s name on his lips.

 _But it was Arya!_ he argues with himself. _I saw Arya, I remembered that last day with her._

“Jon?” Sansa’s voice brings him back to the present. “You were shouting for Arya,” she repeats. “Did you dream of her?”

He nods reluctantly; she is his wife, and he does not think he ought to lie to her after he already slighted her on the night when they should have been husband and wife in the true sense of the terms.

Finding himself at a loss for words, he watches Sansa instead. There’s what seems like wistfulness in her gaze now, something like curiosity, but a slight sense of irritation, too – emotions he is surprised at having recognised considering how rarely she lets her stoic mask fall, never letting people see what truly goes on in her mind, and considering how little _he_ cares for what others feel, more occupied with his simple yearning for prey when he is wolfish, and the dreary, complicated emotions that arise when he is Jon Snow.

“Tell me,” she says, finally withdrawing her hand from his brow, (and he is surprised to realise that he misses her cold touch the moment she takes her hand away). She settles back on her side of the huge bed, leaning against the pillows. “Tell me what you dreamt. Tell me about Arya.”

He is a little taken aback at her demand. Nobody has asked him to talk of Arya yet. Even when Lord Manderly’s scouts return empty-handed with no news of Arya, the plump lord skirts around the issue, promising that he _will_ find the princess, but never remarking on Jon’s unnatural longing for her. When a pall of gloom descends upon him at the lack of any knowledge on where his sister is, even Sam prefers to remain mum on the matter, not knowing how to respond to the unnatural thoughts Jon has for the girl who was his sister.

 So Sansa’s waiting gaze leaves him all at sea.

He does not know what to say; he cannot find words to describe what he saw of Arya – that wild tangle of uncombed hair, as dark as his own, those beautiful grey eyes that had him mesmerised, telling him so much more than her words ever could, her skinny arms around his neck, and her level voice that broke at the end, belying just how much she would miss him when they went their different ways…

The ache descends upon him again, fiercely now, making him agitated and desperate for Arya, knowing he can never tell Sansa what Arya means to him, knowing nobody can ever understand the gaping hole that his lost sister carved into his heart – a hole that not even Bran’s words from the heart tree can ever fill, let alone this other sister of theirs who is little more than a stranger to him despite the time they have spent together since their betrothal.

He is restless now, longing for the escape that is waiting for him in the wolfswood, in Ghost’s familiar mind and body, in Nymeria’s furry head resting against his, in the link that the she-wolf holds to his sister, away from the emptiness and longing that assails him now.

He gets off the bed, finding that he wants to get far away from this room that had once belonged to Lady Stark, away from this sister who has nothing of the North in her looks, away from the plethora of emotions warring within him that make him want to pull at his hair.

“Jon, wait,” Sansa calls, a note of hurt in her voice.

He glances at her, taking in her fair colouring and her blue eyes, her brilliant red hair that is bright in the light from the torches. For a moment, he wishes it was her sister here with him. He wishes she was Arya.

Sansa’s face falls, her eyes glistening now; and he wonders if she can read his mind, whether she knows that it is Arya he wants and not her.

He finds a sheet of shame enveloping him now. He shouldn’t feel this way, he knows. He shouldn’t make _Sansa_ feel this way.

 _She deserves so much better,_ he thinks, pained, _she has always been good to me since I met her at the Trident. She deserves better than what I am now – an accursed, broken shell of the man I once was._

“Forgive me,” he says, the shame washing over him, the sorrow and longing not far behind – a muddled mess that consumes him whole. He is surprised to find his voice breaking at the words, a little lump in his throat now that seems foreign to him. He doesn’t remember ever shedding tears since his resurrection, not when he saw his friends dying, not when Rickon died in his arms, not even tears of relief and joy when they vanquished the Others. But here, faced with Sansa’s anguish, his own guilt, and the maddening battle that Arya always causes in his mind and heart, he finds himself overwhelmed at it all.

“It is alright, Jon,” Sansa whispers softly.

The sense of understanding in her words only adds to his guilt, and with a nod at her, he walks away from her, knowing Ghost is waiting to grant him blessed refuge again.

* * *

 

The days fly by, and it is as if nothing has changed. He is married to Sansa, yes. But they never share a chamber again – it is as if they were never wed at all. They never talk of that night, they never talk of Nymeria’s howl that made him back away from her, they never talk of him waking up with Arya’s name on his lips. Instead, they go about their chores and duties like they did when they were just cousins who were once half-siblings, not the man and wife they swore to be.

He spends his days overseeing the rebuilding of the castle. He overseeing the training of his men, and visits the lands closest to him; Lady Maege and the lords in his council help him in finalising the new contracts for selling timber to traders in some of the Free Cities.

Lords Manderly and Glover are not too happy about Larence being awarded the Hornwood lands and lordship. Some of Sansa’s Riverlander lords are always at odds with each other too, their ravens keep flying in. _They’re my bannermen too now, the lords of the Riverlands,_ he reminds himself. But he cannot help but feel out of place with the lords and ladies, knowing he isn’t at all adept at diplomacy and inking truces and settlements that will satisfy each of them.

 _I was never meant to be a King,_ he thinks despairingly one evening, after a particularly harrowing time over the fate of the Dreadfort.

 _I was never meant for this, I was never meant to be a lord, let alone a King,_ he broods.

Sometimes, he feels like this Kingship has shackled him, bound him with duties and responsibilities he cannot throw off, no matter how much he wants to. Sometimes, like now, all he wishes is to run free in the Wolfswood, as Ghost, as a wolf, with nothing on his mind but the wind lashing at his fur and the scent of fresh prey as Nymeria races past him.

She’s still here now, Arya’s wolf, trotting by his side, like always. She follows him everywhere, _like she once used to follow Sansa,_ he thinks. But for all that the she-wolf is annoyed with Sansa, Jon knows that she still loves their red-haired sister.

“Where’s your brother?” he asks Nymeria, who only growls in irritation. But Jon already knows where his wolf is.

He hesitates momentarily, and then takes off to collect his direwolf from the woman whose side the massive beast hardly leaves nowadays.

He stands for a long moment before the tall doors of Sansa’s chamber. He has been there only once before, on their wedding night. He threads his fingers thought Nymeria’s thick fur, and then knocks twice on the door.

“Come in,” comes her reply.

Again, it is Nymeria who leads him, her clawed paws clacking on the stone floor as she walks past him into the chambers.

It is the warmth in the room that he notices first. And only then does his gaze fall on her. Her hair is loosely braided, tendrils of hair fluttering in the breeze blowing in through the window. The lone candle-flame flickering at the table she is sitting at illuminates her face, and makes her red tresses seem redder. She looked weary before he came in, he knows, for Ghost tells him so. But now, she seems pleasantly surprised at seeing him here.

“My King,” she says, graceful even in the simple act of getting to her feet.

“Jon,” he says without thinking, “Call me _Jon._ ”

He is fed up of people calling him _Your Grace._ Only Lord Reed calls him _Jon_ when they speak in private, and Sam sometimes, though he corrects himself soon after, and Bran through the heart tree, and Nymeria. But he thinks it shall be nice being called Jon by—well, by his _wife_ , no matter how tough he still finds finding himself with a wife, _who was once my sister, like Arya._ He brushes the thought away before the familiar emptiness can assail him. But he cannot, of course. He cannot forget, even if he tries. But the pain is only a dull thudding somewhere in his heart now, not how it feels like it is physically tearing him apart sometimes.

“You must call me Sansa, then,” she interrupts his thoughts, meeting his eyes with a clear, blue-eyed gaze, “None of the ‘My Queen’ and ‘My Lady _’._ I am your wife, Jon, you must call me by my name.”

He hesitates a moment. Calling her _Sansa_ somehow reminds him that she was once his sister, that they once called the same man _father_ and grew up as half-siblings. It reminds him that the sister he truly wants is not here with him, while the one who is with him is now his _wife_. Calling Sansa by her name and not her title only rekindles the conflict that wars within him daily, and the yearning that grows deeper with each passing day. But he cannot tell that to Sansa. He does not want to see the hurt swimming in those blue eyes again, like it did when he spurned her on their wedding night.

So he only manages a nod. “Sansa,” he agrees.

She smiles – a bright, genuine smile that somehow makes him smile too.

They remain silent for a moment, awkward and uncertain, before Jon whistles softly to Ghost, wanting to take him with him. It isn’t often that he gets a peaceful sleep unless he is in the direwolf’s skin. But Ghost huffs loudly from his spot at Sansa’s feet, refusing to budge, even when Jon reaches out to him.

It is only when Nymeria growls a low growl, calling for her brother, that Ghost snorts and gets to his paws, nudging Sansa’s hand with his snout, and then following his sister out of the chambers.

Jon makes to bid Sansa goodnight and follow the direwolves. But suddenly, he notices that Sansa’s smile has faded, almost as if she doesn’t want him to leave.

He cannot blame her. He is her husband. He should have shared a bedchamber with her for dozens of nights now, to give her the babes he knows she longs for (for Ghost has seen the way she is always reluctant to let go of baby Aemon, Sam and Gilly’s son, and the bitter-sweet smile she flashes whenever she sees the two maids who are big with child). He knows he ought to do his duty as a husband, fulfil the vows he swore to her.

 _But she is your sister, like Arya,_ reminds a voice in his mind; it sounds like Nymeria.

But she is not, is she? Sansa is his cousin, and his wife now.

But if Sansa was never his sister at all, that means Arya was never his sister too—and that is a thought he cannot bear.

 _Brother,_ Nymeria calls to him fiercely, as they lie side by side on the Myrish rug in Jon’s room. _Brother! You are my brother!_

He licks at Nymeria’s grey fur, tasting mud and snow and the faded memories of the life he once lived with his sister. _Arya,_ he agrees with the she-wolf, _little sister._

He can still see her in his mind’s eye, even though he cannot remember much of her. Nymeria’s memories of her paint a picture of a wild, feisty girl, who sneaked out from the Septa’s sewing lessons, and battled with wooden sticks with a butcher’s boy. The girl who completed sentences with him, and peppered his face with a dozen kisses when he gave her that sword.

Oh, how he wants her. He wants Arya more than he wants anything. He loved her, and he loves her still, if he is even capable of love. What else could it be? This deep longing for her, the constant ache in his heart, the feeling that the only thing even remotely capable of setting him right again is the girl he pines for, the feeling that he would give up his kingship, his castle and maybe even his wife for a single glimpse of Arya.

 _I shouldn’t feel like this for Arya,_ he berates himself, _I shouldn’t feel like this for a sister—no, she was never my sister at all._

Nymeria growls from beside him on the rug, snapping her jaw at him, but he tries to ignore her. _I shouldn’t feel this way when I have a wife now._

But Arya occupies his thoughts every waking minute, he looks for glimpses of her in everything he sees. The scullery maid’s daughter’s wild hair reminds him of Arya, as does the Master of Horse’s sister’s toothy smile. He looks for her in his mother’s statue in the crypts, and in his own face that reflects on the still waters of the pool in the godswood. When he runs his hand through Nymeria’s fur, he imagines it is Arya’s hair he is mussing up, and when he sleeps next to Nymeria in the godswood, he wishes she were Arya instead, snuggling up to him in the cold of the night, her scent enveloping him, her voice in his ears, his arms holding her as tightly as they did the last time he embraced her, never letting her part from him again.

 _Arya,_ he thinks, _Arya._

“Jon?” says Sansa softly.

For a moment, he is stunned that he is standing before her, this sister who isn’t the one he wants. He is stunned that he isn’t the wolf lying with Nymeria on the rug in his own bedchambers, but King Jon Stark standing before his Queen.

Somehow, he cannot meet Sansa’s gaze now.

 _My heart belongs to Arya,_ he thinks fiercely, _it always did and it always will._

But he cannot say that to Sansa, of course. He cannot hurt her; he doesn’t want to.

 _She is my wife,_ he reminds himself, looking anywhere but at those blue eyes. His gaze falls on the ledgers that lie on her table, the quills resting beside the inkpot.

“Doesn’t the steward keep the books of account?” he asks her instead, anything to take his mind away from the battle within.

“He does,” Sansa replies, “I am just reviewing the figures.  A lot of our stocks were spent on the wedding and the guests. The granaries are almost empty. The new consignment from the Reach should arrive at White Harbour within the moon. That will replenish our stocks.”

He nods. He knew she looked into the ledgers. But he did not know she took such an interest in the food stores and the like.

“My—well, my Mother used to review the figures when she was the Lady of Winterfell,” Sansa says quietly, as if she read his mind.

Jon does not remember much of Lady Catelyn Stark. But sometimes, when he looks at Sansa going about her duties as the lady of the castle, he feels a pall of unease descending on him, a bit of gloom and the feeling of being inferior, of being left out – Sansa reminds him of another woman in Stark colours, with red hair and blue eyes that either looked through him or glared at him with question and derision. _You shouldn’t be here,_ he thinks he remembers Lady Catelyn’s mute gaze saying sometimes, _you shouldn’t be here, with my true-born children. Winterfell does not belong to you._

He had disliked Catelyn Stark once. Perhaps, he had even hated her. He does not remember. But recently, he has found himself carrying none of those sentiments for the deceased lady. Instead, he searches for traces of Arya in the faint memories of her mother that Sansa invokes in him.

But now, when he sees Sansa’s face fall as she speaks of her mother, when he sees how hollow her smile is, he, strangely, does not quite think of Arya. Jon knows why Sansa is upset. He knows why thinking of Lady Catelyn always makes her sad. _Lady Stoneheart,_ he thinks, remembering the reports that he had heard of her during the War.

“Mother used to often sit with Vayon Poole the steward and Maester Luwin to review the figures,” Sansa goes on, looking away from him and down at the parchment now.

Jon can almost feel her sorrow, her agonising loss. He never met his mother, but he still longs for her sometimes. Sansa, though, had known and loved her mother… and to know that she had been butchered at the Red Wedding and then turned into the horrific Lady Stoneheart…

He cannot fathom the extent of Sansa’s grief as he watches her, knowing he should do something, _say_ something to console her. He misses Ghost acutely now. If Ghost was here, he could have licked at Sansa’s palm, where he knows she is ticklish, and made her giggle. But Ghost has left with Nymeria. And Jon is alone with Sansa now, his wife.

He should do something, he knows, _anything_ , but he can find no words. Instead, he hesitates again, before gently taking her hand in his, hoping the gesture tells her all that he cannot say.

It is the first time he is touching her since when he woke up screaming Arya’s name.

She has kept her distance from him since that night, like she did before they were wed, nothing like she was in the godswood, where she clasped his hand between her cold ones, nor like that wedding night that still plagues him with guilt, when she had danced with him, twirling with an elegance that had him momentarily mesmerised, and _later,_ when he had cupped her cheek and found himself wanting to feel her mouth with his.

“Mother was good at these things,” Sansa goes on. She is smiling again now, he sees, making something flutter in his belly. “She used to keep note of the stocks, and appoint people to posts when Father was away. She was used to doing it all at Riverrun, when Grandfather Hoster was away and Grandmother Minisa died.”

He is hearing her, but not really listening to her. Instead, he dwells on how he likes feeling her hand in his, with her hair fluttering as a gust of breeze flies in from the window.

It is different, this, watching Sansa with his _own_ eyes. He prefers doing it from within Ghost, where his thoughts regarding his wife are far less conflicted, where he can observe her quietly – when she sings to herself as she sews, when she charms everyone with her lilting smiles and sweet words, when she greets all the smallfolk who throng to the castle to see their new King and Queen, and sits quietly by the heart tree, reading. She makes a beautiful picture at all times, with her braided hair and the Stark colours she dons, looking the regal Queen she is.

But now, even though she is dressed in just a simple shift beneath her night-robe that clings to her – and _how_ his insides seem to somersault at that observation – he thinks she has never looked prettier than she does now, in the glow of the flame of the candle.

“I was never really good with numbers, unlike Mother,” says Sansa, her voice still level, but her eyes shining with an emotion that makes him want to clasp her hand tighter, “Maester Luwin used to teach us all, but Robb and Arya were far better—”

Just like that, with the merest mention of Arya, the spell is broken.

“Arya was good with numbers, then?” He asks her eagerly. His hold on her hand tightens for an entirely different reason now. He wants nothing more than to know about Arya. He cares for nothing but Arya.

“She was,” says Sansa softly, “She was good at riding a horse, too. She could ride faster than anyone in Winterfell. Even faster than Robb and you.”

He imagines her in his mind’s eyes – a skinny little girl on a horse, wild hair flying in the wind as she laughs aloud. She looks a little like the Arya from the memory that Nymeria had shown him that night, all messy-haired and skinny-limbed. She looks a little like the statue of his mother in the crypts too, because he has heard so often that Arya looked like Lyanna. But she also looks a little like Sansa, the only living human link he has to his sister – a realisation that makes him remember that he is still in Sansa’s bedchambers, with her hand still clasped in his.

He stares at Sansa, wanting to ask her more about Arya, but worried it would only seek to hurt her.

This isn’t right, he knows. He shouldn’t be in his wife’s bedchambers with another girl on his mind and in his heart. But he wants to know, he _has_ to know about Arya – to fill the gaping hole inside him, to dull the rising pain.

“Jon,” says Sansa quietly, squeezing his hand gently now. “Do you want to know more about Arya, Jon?”

He stares at her, taken aback at her words. He hesitates only a moment before he nods.

She leads him to her bed, where he sits down beside her, and she begins telling him of their sister.

* * *

The days fly past faster now. He spends his mornings doing his kingly duties, his evenings in the godswood or the crypts, and his nights wearing Ghost’s skin, Nymeria snoring softly by his side.

But on some nights, he finds himself in Sansa’s bedchambers.

She tells him about Arya – about how she never liked to play with her dolls when she was younger, but followed her brothers on her unsteady little legs to watch them spar under Ser Rodrick’s watchful eyes.

She tells him how Arya made friends with just anyone – from the squires and the grooms, to the serving girls at Winterfell. She tells him how she stole pies from the indulgent cooks in the kitchens and played come-into-my-castle and monsters-and-maidens with their children.

She tells him how bold Arya was, how she went up and chattered with the coarsest-looking freeriders, gritty young squires and grizzled men-at-arms, throwing snowballs at them, laughing all the while. She tells him how unafraid she was even when she tried to mount Father’s fastest destrier, claiming she could outrace them all. How bravely she stood up for the butcher’s boy against the very Prince, and how courageously she spoke the truth in front of the King and the Queen!

(But she also tells him that for all that his little sister claimed to be unaffected by Old Nan’s scary stories, Arya would sneak out of the bedchambers she shared with Sansa in the middle of the night, climbing into Jon’s bed as he promised her that they would together slay the monsters who crawled into her dreams.)

* * *

 

He begins sitting with Sansa and Sam in his solar on some evenings, Ghost by her feet and Nymeria at his. On most evenings, she talks to him as his Queen, on matters of the realm and the ravens from the Riverlander lords. Sam reads missives sent from his Aunt, the Dragon Queen, sometimes. And it is Sansa who decides what reply to send; she is far better in dealing with his Aunt that either Sam or he are, Jon notices. Sometimes, Old Nan sits with them, sewing and telling them about all the Brandon Starks of old, her voice whispery and trembling yet containing a power that has them spellbound at her tales.

Slowly, Sam ceases to join them as frequently as he used to, leaving Jon alone with his wife and his wolves – Ghost calm and quiet, and Nymeria looking at Sansa, her gaze conflicted.

Most evenings, they speak on matters of the realm, making Jon a little surprised at how their views concur more often than not.

But sometimes, Sansa sits with the ledgers, humming softly to herself, one of Ghost’s ears perked up as he listens to her sweet voice. He watches her – her long fingers, the quill scratching swiftly over the book, the letters elegant. He watches how she worries at her lip sometimes, when the numbers don’t add up. He watches how some of the songs she hums make her smile; but how the one song she sings, a Southron song about the Riverlands, makes her eyes glisten sometimes, and he knows that it reminds her of her mother.

Sometimes they sit in silence – awkward at first, and comfortable with each new evening they spend together.

Sometimes he watches how the last of the sunrays flashing in from the window make her hair seem to glow as bright as fire. It reminds him faintly of another girl – the wildling girl who once made love to him under the furs. But sometimes, he just marvels at the beauty of Sansa’s hair, wishing he could run his fingers through the silken strands just to know how they feel to his touch.

Sometimes she reads to him about the Stark Kings of old, about Brandon the Builder and Bran the Daughterless, the Hungry Wolf, and Rodrick Stark who won Bear Island from the Ironborn in a wrestling match. Once, she even accompanies him to the crypts, telling him that Father used to bring Robb and him there sometimes, telling them about all their fierce ancestors, ensuring that Robb could name each and every lord and king.

(When he goes to the crypts next, he does watch Lyanna’s statue as he yearns for Arya, but he also imagines Father there with him, his voice soft even in the silence of the crypts as he regales his son— _no, his nephew—_ with tales of the Kings of Winter.)

* * *

Sometimes, she reads to him of the Dragon Kings. And although hearing about that side of his family makes him feel uneasy, he discovers that he likes how sweet Sansa’s voice is when she reads to him, how delicately she turns the pages of the book, how her eyes dance with a hundred emotions when she tells him that Robb loved reading about the battles and Bran loved listening to tales of the Kingsguard.

(The next time he finds himself in the library, he imagines a little Bran, blue eyes alight as he listens to tales of the Dragonknight and sers Erryk and Arryk and the Star of the Morning. When his eyes fall on an account of the Battle of the Ninepenny Kings, he imagines Robb’s awed face as he reads about his Uncle Blackfish’s exploits in the battle).

* * *

Most times, Sansa tells him about Arya, but sometimes, she tells him about how her day went – how she named the kitchen maid’s new babe Jeyne for her childhood friend Jeyne Poole, how she has asked for whatever books remain in Castle Black’s library to be brought to Winterfell, and about the new foal birthed by the grey mare in the stables.

Sansa speaks and she speaks, and he listens… until he begins speaking to her too.

He tells her about his own day, how he won a sparring bout against one of the giant-like Last Hearth men, and how Alla the spearwife would make a good addition of Sansa’s Queensguard, and how little Aemon has now started playing with his little wooden sword instead of the toy knight he dragged all around. He tells her about his talks with Tormund and the freefolk, and about the blacksmiths he has appointed to forge new weapons for the almost-empty armoury.

He starts telling her about how unsuitable he finds himself in dealing with some of his lords, who grapple with each other for the best of the lands left lord-less, the Bolton and Dustin lands in the forefront. For all his interactions with the lords when they named him King in the North – from trusting Lord Manderly’s counsel to drinking with the Umber brothers and dining with ladies Cerwyn and Glover – he now finds himself all at sea.

“Let me do that,” he tells her one evening, as he watches her bite at her lip, worrying over the cost of the Myrish glass they have decided to import. She protests only lightly before she hands the quill to him, a flutter in his belly when her cold fingers touch his. “I can do this for you,” he tells her when he is finished adding up the costs and deciding the amount of glass that they can afford with their meagre gold. “I can review the ledgers and finalise the contracts.” She has told him she isn’t too good with numbers, he remembers, and he decides quietly that he wants to make things easier for her.

“Thank you,” she says, smiling – a different smile, this, as if this simple gesture of his has touched her heart in some way.

She is silent for a moment before she speaks again. “I could speak to the lords,” she says quietly. “I can think I can deal with them on matters of the lands and the lordships.”

He nods.

* * *

Before he knows it, she makes her way into their bannermen’s hearts. She has not known the Northern lords as long and well as he has. She has not led them into battle like he had. But he finds that for all that they undervalue her views in the beginning – perhaps, because she is a woman and they do not know her well – they slowly begin seeing her as a Queen in her own right.

In her sweet voice beneath which dwells the innate strength and sense of command that comes with being a daughter of the much-loved Eddard Stark, she placates Lord Manderly, appointing him the Master of Coin in lieu of him giving up eyeing the lands he covets. She brings an end to the constant bickering between Tormund and the GreatJon too. Soon, the furious letters flying in from the Brackens and the Blackwoods reduce drastically in number, after the settlements she makes them decide upon, and the marriage she suggests between the two warring families.

Jon marvels at her sometimes, as she sits beside him on the weirwood throne, the bronze crown resting proudly on her head as she listens to the grievances some of the smallfolk bring. He values that despite how far cleverer than him she is in these matters, she never undermines his authority as the King chosen by the North, just like he lets her handle the Riverlands who chose her as their leader.

As the days pass by, it is her quiet, wise counsel that makes him decide that his Kingship isn’t quite as taxing as it was before.

* * *

He finds himself visiting her bedchambers in the night far more often than he used to. But for every moment he watches Sansa, he yearns to listen to more tales of his lost sister.

Now, he knows far more about Arya than he ever did, for Sansa paints a glorious picture of the girl he longs for.

He now knows that Arya never liked to wear pretty gowns, how she was more at home in her riding leathers and her jerkin, how she never liked to let anyone brush her hair, uncaring even when it turned into a rat’s nest after days of being uncombed.

He knows that he was Arya’s favourite brother – and _how_ that makes his heart beat faster, blooming with a fierce joy, followed by a powerful longing. He knows she would be secretly upset when Sansa and Jeyne called her _Arya Horseface,_ (he notices how ashamed and sad Sansa looks at that admission). And that she would smile in pleased disbelief when Father and Jon told her she was pretty.

He knows that Arya would sometimes sneak out of Maester Luwin’s lessons on House words and sigils to play at hoops with Bran and Jon and baby Rickon, a little chastised when Father scolded her later, but always making him forgive her with her big eyes and her mischievous smiles and a loving kiss to Father’s bearded cheek.

He knows how Arya would vex Lady Catelyn with her unladylike manners, but make her mother smile by eventide, her hair wild, her face muddy, and a bunch of painstakingly-collected flowers in her hand – yellow and red and white, ones she knew reminded Lady Catelyn of her home in the Riverlands. He knows how Arya had collected flowers on the kingsroad, too, presenting them to their father.

(And when he is in Ghost on moonlit nights, Nymeria by his side, he finds himself sniffing at the patches in the wolfswood where the tiny flowers grow, imagining a pretty, wild-haired girl in muddy clothes, picking the flowers as she smiles broadly at her bastard brother).

* * *

He does not realise until much later that he does not spend as much time within Ghost as he used to.

He does not realise that now when he sits with Sansa in the solar in the evenings, Nymeria and Ghost do not join them.

He does not realise that instead of watching her with Ghost’s eyes, he now watches her with his own, as a man instead of a wolf.

* * *

Sansa tells him about the one time Robb and he played that prank on their siblings – with a flour-covered Jon stepping out of the open tomb in the crypts, moaning for blood. She tells how him baby Bran’s eyes had gotten as big as saucers as he clung to Robb’s leg, sobbing; and how Sansa ran for the stairs herself, shrieking.

She tells him how Arya, courageous even when she’d been little, had stood her ground and given the spirit-Jon a punch, scolding him about scaring the baby, before the four of them laughed and laughed and laughed.

(When he visits the crypts next, he finds that the Kings of Winter do not glare at him as much as they used to, they do not tell him that this isn’t his place and he isn’t a Stark. Instead, he finds himself imagining a familiar flash of red as a shrieking Sansa runs up the stairs. And he imagines a little Arya and baby Bran and Robb, laughing and laughing till baby Bran drops to the floor in splits.

It feels bitter-sweet instead of the painful longing he usually feels, and for every moment he spends at his mother’s statue for many nights after, drawing Arya in his mind’s eye, he hears the crypts echoing with the hearty laughter of the siblings who once meant the world to him.)

* * *

He knows what Sansa is doing, of course – for every new thing he knows about Arya, he knows one about another member of their family. He knows Bran’s favourite food now and Rickon’s favourite toy; he knows Robb’s favourite King of Winter and the names of Father’s most trusted men. He knows every metal that Maester Luwin wore in his chain and the name of every boy Robb and he used to play with. He even knows about Theon Greyjoy and Jory and Mikken and Farlen.

He remembers the time when he never liked speaking of them at all before. He remembers the hole in his heart where they had all once dwelled and the hole in his mind that once held every moment he had ever spent with them. He remembers that feeling of loss and desperation and that he shouldn’t have been alive when they were all dead, leaving him with not even their memories. He remembers when thinking of them would only worsen the emptiness.

But now, he finds that he can dwell on them with a little less of the sorrow, as Sansa’s words fill in a little of the void they had left.

He thinks of the snow melting in Robb’s hair the last time he saw him without the usual pang of loss.

When he thinks of Rickon, he doesn’t think of the corpse lying dead and bloodied in his arms, but of a little boy with red hair, as wild and feisty as a direwolf, a child who thought the world of his older brother, uncaring of his bastardy.

When he thinks of Bran, he doesn’t just think of the voice from the heart tree, but he tries to remember the boy who loved to climb up walls and trees, with stars in his eyes as he spoke of being a knight.

And when he thinks of Father, the pain and the guilt and the thousand questions don’t descend upon him. Instead, he tries to remember the honourable man who put an orphaned child above his own honour. The man who kept such a terrible secret, knowing it would sour his ties with his wife – all for a boy who wasn’t even his own. The man who taught his bastard nephew everything that he taught his own son and heir. The man who, despite not being Jon’s father at all, was the only father Jon could ever want.

“I am your son,” he tells the silent statue of Eddard Stark in the crypts one night. “I am your son, and you shall always be my father.”

He is startled to find his eyes moist.

The statue says nothing, of course. But behind him, he hears Sansa speak.

“Jon,” is all she says.

And when she sinks to the ground beside him, he finds that he lets her put her arms around him, her cold a welcome respite from the ever-present warmth of his own skin, her body soft against his, giving him a sense of comfort he doesn’t ever remember feeling.

He finds that he doesn’t pull away from her when she runs an affectionate hand through his hair. Instead, he finds his hold on her tightening, as he rests his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her flowery scent.

(It is only later that he wonders why Nymeria, who was next to him all the time in the crypts, never alerted him when Sansa arrived – a sharp contrast to how angry and sullen the she-wolf usually is around his wife.

It is only later that he wonders why he took comfort from Sansa instead of Arya’s direwolf.

It is only later that he wonders why Nymeria crept away when he let Sansa press a soft kiss to his cheek.)

* * *

He lies in bed restless one night, unable to sleep with Ghost and Nymeria off hunting in the woods – an activity for which he does not accompany them anymore. Hunting down prey and eating them raw does not hold the same appeal it once did to him. Instead, he finds that he likes dining with Sansa in the Great Hall, with the benches full of cheerful men and the air heavy with a hundred delicious smells.

He tosses and turns in his bed, sleep hard to come as always.

So, he walks to Sansa’s chambers, eager to know more about Arya, and even about their father and their siblings.

But when he enters her chambers he sees that she is fast asleep.

He walks slowly to Sansa’s side, wondering how it would feel to just _touch_ her, to take her hand in his. He knows he likes that - she is cold to his warm touch, and her coolness reminds him of something of his previous life, of the brilliant colours of the Wall and the snow melting in a head full of red curls, and shivering in a cell of ice. It reminds him of the days when he would feel the cold, when he was a Snow with Stark blood in his veins. It reminds him of his siblings and his father and the time when Winterfell rang with childish laughter and the yapping of wolf pups.

He watches her for a long, long moment – the strands of red hair that have escaped her loosely-tied braid, how red her eyelashes look against her pale colouring, her high cheekbones, how peaceful she looks when she is asleep.

 _Sansa, my wife,_ he thinks, stunned at just how _beautiful_ she is, prettier than anyone he has ever seen, prettier than even the Dragon Queen.

It startles him, this – really _seeing_ Sansa as a woman.

When walks closer to her, he notices that she is clad only in a shift, unlike how she always wears a robe when he visits her at night. He notices how sheer the shift is, how he can see her pale breasts in the light of the torches.

It takes him by surprise – how he wishes he could kiss those full lips, and wonder how it would be to caress those breasts. He feels a tightening in his breeches, a lust simmering in the pit of his belly that is more welcome than any warmth he has felt yet.

He backs away from her.

 _Sister,_ he thinks, _she is my sister._

 _My wife,_ he thinks then, _she is my wife._

Suddenly, he misses having Nymeria by his side – the one anchor who held him in place in this second life, feeling utterly lost with all the feelings that watching Sansa is bringing to him.

 _I am a man,_ he tells himself, _I have nothing to be ashamed of for thinking so about my wife._

But when he looks at her face again, he remembers that this is the girl he once called sister, the one he always let win in monsters-and-dragons, the daughter cherished by Eddard and Catelyn Stark, _Arya’s_ sister.

There’s a war raging in his mind now, and in his heart— _no, not my heart. My heart belongs to Arya._ He reaches out to Ghost, feeling him lying by Nymeria’s side, the she-wolf quiet unlike her usual boisterous self.

 _Brother,_ she calls to him, _Jon. Mine._

He watches Sansa for a long moment, and then he flees, never speaking of it again.

* * *

With each new dawn, the days turn a little brighter, the nights a little shorter. The mounds of snow on the castle courtyard melt completely, making little streams of muddy water carve a path between the gnarled roots that creep all over the godswood floor. Tiny green shoots peep out of the damp ground, growing stouter and taller with each new sunrise, some of them already blossoming with colourful flowers that awe Jon – blue and pink and yellow, they blossom everywhere, some even scattered in the dark and foreboding godswood, surging even through the stubborn moss and the dark pebbles around the pool, under the ever-watchful eyes of the heart tree, _Bran’s eyes._

He ventures deeper and deeper into the godswood, towards the vast wolfswood that he hasn’t visited in weeks given how little time he has spent in Ghost recently.

The wolfswood is alive with a hundred new smells, and Jon finds Nymeria there, sniffing at everything like an eager little pup, curious and restless, her tail even wagging sometimes.

Nymeria whines softly when she sees him, touching his nose with hers and her cold tongue flicking out to lick at his muzzle. Ghost whines too, bumping his huge body with hers. She tugs at him playfully, wanting him to join her in exploring the huge forest, in the depths of which her wolf pack dwells.

Her pack isn’t as huge as it used to be in the Riverlands; some of her little cousins perished in the battle for the Twins, some in the biting cold, and some at the hands of the Others and the Wights, Jon himself throwing burning torches at their fierce, animated corpses. Three of her male wolves, she slew herself, when they tried to mount her, try to get her with pup – Ghost bristles at the very thought of it, his teeth barred. _She is my sister,_ Jon thinks. _Mine,_ thinks Ghost.

Whatever remains of her pack now dwells deep in the wolfswood, away from the smallfolk of Wintertown who fear them.

They walk deeper and deeper into the woods, Nymeria close to him, when the quiet of the woods is suddenly broken by a cacophony of welcoming howls that makes his hair stand on end. Nymeria’s wolves stride over to them, emerging from behind the thicket of closely-knit trees. Some of them are known to him, while the young ones eye him a little fearfully.

Nymeria launches into a loud, long howl; and they all join in, this little pack of hers.

 _Pack,_ Nymeria thinks, _our pack._

He watches her, meeting the yellow eyes with his own.

 _Pack,_ he echoes. But there’s something that nags at him, something that doesn’t seem right. This isn’t his pack, it is Nymeria’s. And maybe Ghost’s, but not _Jon’s._

 _Our pack,_ she insists stubbornly, snapping at him with her sharp teeth.

 _Pack,_ he wonders. But instead of the wolves, he finds his thoughts going to the pretty woman he clasped hands with under the heart tree, her blue eyes and her sweet voice and how she has filled up the hole in his heart, not completely, of course, but little by little. He thinks of her tinkling laughter, and her flowery scent, and how quick and nimble her fingers are when she twists her long hair into a braid. She thinks of the command in her voice in the Throne room, and the tears in her eyes as she speaks of her mother. He thinks of the flush in her cheeks when she comes back from riding her horse, and the curve of her breast under the gown she dons.

 _Pack,_ he thinks, _Sansa._

 _Nymeria, wolf, pack,_ Ghost tells him, his wolfish mind overpowering Jon, _Arya._

 _Sansa,_ he protests faintly.

 _Sansa. Arya. Sansa –_ his thoughts are a muddled mess, his mind ringing with the cacophony.

 _Mine!_ says Nymeria fiercely, _you are mine! Pack! Together!_

She lets out a sudden low, mournful howl now, his grey-furred sister, thinking of their dead siblings, their bones resting in the dark place underground – the savage brother, the swift brother, the wise brother and the sweet sister, _all_ of them dead.

 _Not all,_ he reminds, their sweet sister is still alive _._ He senses her every day, in the pale-skinned girl Lady had belonged to.

 _Sansa,_ his human self reminds him, _the girl’s name is Sansa._

 _No! Wolf!_ Nymeria insists, _only you and me,_ showing him their dead siblings again _. You and me._

 _But I am Jon,_ he tells her, _Sansa, wife, mate._

Nymeria bristles, her teeth barred menacingly. _Wolf! Mine!_

 _No,_ he protests, _Jon… King Jon Stark, Sansa’s husband…_

Nymeria lets out a loud, furious howl.

 _Arya!_ she tells him, _Arya, Arya, Arya!_

And suddenly, her mind is alight with a thousand pictures – Arya’s fingers getting entangled in her messed up hair as she tried to comb out the strands before Mother saw her, Arya’s messy embroidery as she sat with the Septa, the wooden stick clacking against the butcher’s boy’s clumsy parries by the Trident, the tears in her eyes as she threw rocks at Nymeria, telling her to run off, Father’s loving kiss on her brow and his words in her ears – _the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives…_ windmilling her arms as she struggled to stand on one leg, whispering Syrio’s words under her breath, the ball of Arya’s thumb brushing across Needle’s smooth pommel, the cries of the seabirds overhead, the pool of water, black as ink and lit by dim red candles, Needle sticking into a dying boy’s side, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until he lay lifeless, kneading a mound of dough until she was told to stop, the soft _plop_ of a silver fork as it sank below the waters, the stink of brine and fish as she wheeled a barrow on the cobbled path, the _clack_ of wood against wood as the stick was knocked out of her hand, the blood gushing out of the singer’s slit throat as she pushed him into the canal, Winterfell’s grey walls and the earthy smell of the glass gardens, the north wind rattling the shutters of her room, and Jon’s voice ringing in her ears – _Stick them with the pointy end! Don’t tell Sansa! –_ as she shoved Needle into a crack in the stones…

 _Stop!_ he cries, the memories too much for him to bear even though he is still hungry for more – the yearning for Arya receding yet increasing with every new thing Nymeria shows him.

Jon stares at the she-wolf now, stunned, exhilarated and stricken in equal measure, and then  _betrayed_.

Nymeria knew this, she knew this all along, but told him nothing of these memories, of the new sights that Arya saw, the new smells she smelled, the new places she visited, the new things about Arya that he had never known because Nymeria never showed him!

 _Where is she? Is she alive, then? Where is she? Tell me!_ he demands of the she-wolf, watching the golden eyes glinting in the sun.  _Tell me! Sister! Tell me about Arya! Bring her home to me!_

Nymeria whimpers, making keening sounds as she faces the onslaught of his questions, his joy and his sorrow, and most of all, the agonising longing that rears its head again.

 _Tell me!_ he demands furiously, Ghost's howl loud, seeming to tear through the very woods.  _Tell me!_

Nymeria joins in his howl with a loud one of her own. And then, she takes off into the woods, not once looking back, already out of his sight as she sprints past the trees.

 _Nymeria! Come back!_ he calls, running after her, the red-haired woman in the castle waiting for him all but forgotten.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this didn't make as much sense as it did inside my head, the two concluding chapters will hopefully clear it out :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on this will be very much appreciated :)


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